


and when we die, our legend lives on

by eynn



Series: i can't go back and lose it all [11]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Nobody Dies, Order 66, everyone is mad and there is a big fight, in two places at once, sith!jedi order, the jedi are Disasters but now they are Disasters with a grudge, well that's not true now i guess but it is true in spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eynn/pseuds/eynn
Summary: Mace stops with his hand outstretched to the doorknob. He eyes how they have formed up around him. He, Kit, Saesee, Luminara herself, and Ki-Adi will go straight for the Chancellor. They will attempt to subdue him without a fight, but they are prepared for it to turn very nasty in a heartbeat.Barriss and Savage are assigned to cover Feral’s invisible snooping. Obi-Wan and Shaak are going to hang back to get a good shot at the Chancellor if the first wave of attack is broken. Yoda is going to try to go unobserved to have the element of surprise for anyone who needs assistance.Mace nods and flings the door open. They all rush in.~Plo Koon stands at the gates of the Jedi Temple and watches the clones mill around outside through the barrier. Sometimes one or two or them will look up and make eye contact with him, but they always smile awkwardly and turn away.Then something enters the Temple. He feels it like a storm sweeping in, cold and distant and pulsing.
Relationships: Plo Koon/Shmi Skywalker
Series: i can't go back and lose it all [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658362
Comments: 28
Kudos: 988





	and when we die, our legend lives on

Luminara Unduli keeps as much of an eye as she can on her daughter as they slink through the streets of Coruscant.

She’s so incredibly proud of the girl.

Barriss had survived being a padawan on the front lines of war, the Sith Lord meddling in her mind, being sent out on her own on missions in that same war, and the slow breakup of the Jedi Order into something more . . . practical. Through it all, she had never lost her drive or her spirit.

Luminara could not be more proud of Barriss if she had been her biological child.

Now she’s the only Knight in a group of Masters, actively participating in what could be the most dangerous mission the Jedi have taken since living memory. They’re going up against a Sith Lord at the height of his power.

Barriss is quiet for the most part, following their lead. But sometimes she says things in a soft aside to the smallest Dathomiri who is walking beside her. Darth Maul’s little brother. He smiles at her and replies in the same quiet voice.

She’s never seen Barriss, her prickly reserved padawan, get along with someone so well so quickly. Maybe it’s just the stress of the situation. It’s good for her to make new friends.

And it’s not like Luminara can be anxious about it because the Dathomiri is Sith. They’re all Sith now.

Though she still wonders about that. Is it possible to be truly Sith while not wanting most of the things that have been synonymous with the name for centuries?

They’re nearing the top levels of the city now, and it’s getting more dangerous for them to be seen. Obi-Wan and, surprisingly, Mace have taken the lead, and they’re going through alleys and empty buildings and across ledges and rooftops. Somehow the two of them know the back ways of Coruscant like smugglers or street thieves.

Luminara can’t think of when they’d have had the time to learn it and keep up to date on it, but she supposes it’s not important right now.

There are a lot of clones patrolling in the blocks around the Senate, more than she remembered being assigned to the Coruscant Guard. Maybe he’s increased security in preparation for making his move on the Republic, whatever is coming next now that he thinks he’s gotten rid of the Jedi. She just wonders where he got all the clones from. Why they’re following his orders if they disobeyed his biggest one.

~

They manage to get within a block of the Senate buildings and huddle together in an empty room to go over the plan again.

Dooku, Ventress, Maul, and Quinlan are going to get rid of Sidious’ escape ship and cause chaos in his secret Sith lair. Dooku’s fairly confident he can find it faster than any of the rest of them, Maul is itching to fight some of the people Sidious has recruited, Ventress just wants to loot his chambers of anything interesting or valuable, and Quinlan is going with them because causing chaos is what he lives for.

The rest of them are going to break into the Senate building and try to pin him in his office. They’re confident that since there are so many of them, much more than there would be if they were just trying to arrest him, even if he escapes from wherever they do corner him, they can follow him.

Maul is noticeably uncomfortable about his brothers going with the Jedi, but after Feral promises several times to stay cloaked and Savage just grins at him and twirls his saberstaff, he gives in.

Luminara watches with surprise as Feral closes his eyes and then . . . sort of melts into the wall. He’s there, she sees Quinlan poke at him and his hand touch something, but it’s very, very hard for her to focus on him standing there.

“He’s our best infiltrator,” Ventress says proudly. “He can stay like that for hours, if he needs to. No one has ever spotted him.”

Feral somehow uncloaks his hand and gives them a thumbs-up before making it disappear again.

“He’ll be going through the Chancellor’s desk and any other places he might be hiding nasty surprises," Quinlan says. "Make sure you keep the old bastard occupied enough he doesn’t notice the drawers opening on their own.”

“Oh, we will,” Obi-Wan fairly growls. Luminara wonders if he’s noticed yet that the piece of broken stair railing he’s leaning on is fizzing with electricity.

Not a Sith. She’ll believe that when she sees Sidious frolicking in a field of daisies while cuddling orphan kittens.

"What about you?" Kit asks the other brother.

Savage gives him another happy look and points at his very large rifle.

“He can hold his own, never fear,” Dooku says impatiently.

As they get ready to make a dash for the Senate buildings, she notices Barriss looking at the place where Feral had been last, a calculating but fascinated expression on her face.

“How are we going to get into the building itself without setting off any alarms?” Ki-Adi asks, and that sets off a storm of ideas.

It’s several minutes before Luminara notices Sabé trying to be heard over the clamor and still be quiet enough to be safe.

“I can get us in,” she says indignantly once Luminara motions that she is listening. “I know all the clearance codes for every Senator in there. This is why I _came_.”

Luminara reaches out and blindly smacks the first person she can – Kit, as it turns out. He yelps and turns to glare at her, handily drawing all the attention to himself.

“As it turns out, we don’t have a problem getting inside undetected,” she says in the silence, and gestures to Sabé, who launches into a rapid discussion of which senator it would be best for them to impersonate via the clearance codes.

They all look taken aback, Yoda and Dooku most of all, and Luminara has to hide a laugh at how alike former master and padawan look at that moment. She doesn’t think they’d appreciate it.

~

They reach the lobby of the Senate building with no trouble. The guards on the door had walked away from it as they came up without seeing them, and though they didn’t know the reason, Mace had assured them that it was probably just part of their rotation.

There’s a tiny laugh from the hidden Feral.

Sabé opens all the doors for them, using the clearance code of one of the Senators that is particularly loyal to Palpatine. Luminara feels a quiet thrill of happiness at knowing that if he was monitoring who was coming and going, he would think he had been betrayed by an ally.

“We should disable the turbolifts,” Barriss whispers as they cross towards them. “It’ll be easier to chase him on the stairs if he gets away.”

“Good idea,” Mace mutters. “Obi-Wan, you want to do it?”

Obi-Wan looks at him with genuine confusion in his face. Luminara wants to slap her own forehead. The man is literally dripping sparks of electricity from his fingertips; they’re all staying carefully out of touching range of him. Quinlan got too close on the trip over and his hair is probably still standing on end.

And still he denies that he, too, has Fallen.

“Look, just go over and touch the lift controls,” she says wearily. “Please, Obi-Wan. We need to get moving.”

He gives her a bewildered look, shrugs, and then strides over and slams his hands down on the controls. There’s a sizzle, a flash that sears their eyes, and the scent of fried plastic and metal fills the air.

Luminara blinks quickly and when she can see again, Obi-Wan is looking at his own hands with a faintly puzzled expression. “How’d that happen?” he is saying softly.

“The only one of us who hasn’t Fallen,” Mace grumbles. “Clearly.”

“A very good liar, he has always been,” Yoda answers. “Especially to himself.”

Luminara smothers a nervous laugh as Obi-Wan returns to them and they start climbing the stairs.

They take a quick side trip to the office of Bail Organa. He’s sitting at his desk, half-slumped over it, looking exhausted and red-eyed.

Sabé knocks once and opens the door with Senator Amidala’s code. Bail lifts his head.

His mouth drops open when he sees the Jedi crowding in behind her.

“What’s going on?” he whispers. “You’ll be seen!”

“It’s fine, we have jammers going,” Kit says, showing him the one he’s carrying in his pocket.

“I thought you were dead.” Bail gets up slowly and goes to touch Obi-Wan, but then sees the arcs of lightning jumping playfully around his hands and thinks better of it. Mace goes over and clasps his hands instead.

“We’re not dead, Senator Organa. Somehow our men resisted the kill order and faked our deaths for us.”

“The Chancellor is a Sith!” Bail says urgently. “He’s taking control of the Senate, turning the Republic into his own personal kingdom. You have to stop him!”

“That’s where we are going.”

“He tried to steal Anakin,” Obi-Wan growls, and yeah, his eyes are glowing yellow.

“He betrayed us,” Kit snaps.

“He tried to get into my padawan’s head,” Luminara hisses. They all answer at the same time and their voices overlap into a rumbling wave.

“An abomination in the Force, he is,” Yoda says when the echoes die away. “Smothering it, he has been for many years. Stop him we must.”

~

Sabé takes cover with Senator Organa in his office and the rest of them continue on up the stairs. If it all goes wrong, Sabé and Bail will try to evacuate the building and get the news of the Chancellor’s treachery out onto the holonet. Meanwhile, they are locking down the building so nobody from outside can intervene and try to save the Chancellor.

The group of Fallen Jedi shield tighter and tighter, both as individuals and together, as they approach the door to his office.

Mace stops with his hand outstretched to the doorknob. He eyes how they have formed up around him. He, Kit, Saesee, Luminara herself, and Ki-Adi will go straight for the Chancellor. They will attempt to subdue him without a fight, but they are prepared for it to turn very nasty in a heartbeat.

Barriss and Savage are assigned to cover Feral’s invisible snooping. Obi-Wan and Shaak are going to hang back to get a good shot at the Chancellor if the first wave of attack is broken. Yoda is going to try to go unobserved to have the element of surprise for anyone who needs assistance.

Mace nods and flings the door open. They all rush in.

Palpatine is sitting at his desk. Half a dozen of the Coruscant Guard, armed with electrostaffs, are around him.

Luminara falls into step beside Ki-Adi and behind Mace as he strides towards the desk. She can feel the others spreading out behind her, their lightsabers ready to ignite.

“Darth Sidious, you are under arrest for treason and crimes against the Republic and countless worlds,” Mace says.

Palpatine’s face had been a mask of surprise and bewilderment when his door had been flung open, but as soon as the final ‘s’ in ‘Sidious’ falls from Mace’s mouth, that drops away to show a cold, calculating man where the grandfatherly Chancellor had been seconds before.

“I see my little secret is out in the open,” he says, rising slowly from his chair. “Tell me, Master Windu, how did you escape the orders I gave to my clone army?”

Mace laughs harshly. “We didn’t,” he says, and elaborates no further. Let him be confused. “Those orders led us here. Come with us, or we will have no hesitation in killing you where you stand.”

Palpatine sighs, and for a moment the benevolent twinkle is back in his eyes. It looks strange on his face. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a communicator. “I see I must dispose of them, then.” He clicks it on. “Commander –”

That’s all the further he gets before someone behind Luminara uses the Force to rip it from his hands and smash it against the wall. Palpatine snarls, grabbing a lightsaber hilt from his robes, and ignites a red blade.

The not-Jedi flick their lightsabers on in response, and Mace is the first to clash with him. The rest of them form up in a ragged defensive circle as a hidden door opens and about two dozen more of Palpatine’s guard rush in and enter the fight.

Luminara finds herself occupied keeping them off Mace, Ki-Adi, and Kit’s backs as they duel the Chancellor. Obi-Wan and Shaak are wading into the guards with feral joy on their faces. Shaak is occasionally forgoing using her lightsaber at all, pulling them in and raking her claws and fangs over the weak spots in their armor. Obi-Wan is lashing out with lightning between his preferred defensive strikes with his saber.

Savage and Barriss are teamed up with their backs to the wall, slowly inching their way around to get behind the Chancellor’s desk. Luminara has no idea where Feral went, but assumes he’s somewhere near them. Beside her Saesee is helping her hold off the guards.

Sabé and Bail, hopefully, have shut down all access into the building and disabled all the alarms. Nobody should be coming to interrupt them.

“So the siege on your precious Temple was also a lie?” Palpatine is snarling as he whirls and strikes. “Very well. I will send my apprentice to deal with that.” He turns on a comm on his wrist. A hologram of a dark humanoid shape appears. “Vader! We are discovered. Enter the Jedi Temple immediately and kill them all, clones and Jedi.”

“Yes, Master,” the shape says mechanically, and the hologram blinks off.

Palpatine cackles even as he fights. “Your Temple will fall beneath Vader’s fist, and already your precious Kenobi has turned to the Dark.”

“Oh, that?” Mace says breathlessly. “He’s not alone.” He unleashes a furious barrage of lightning that Palpatine barely dodges.

Palpatine retaliates with a massive Force push that sends Kit and Saesee headlong into the far wall, getting sliced open by several of the guards along the way who must have been waiting for something like that to happen. Luminara stumbles back as well and then retreats even further to guard them, taking off the head of one of the guards who attacked them and stabbing another through the stomach on the way. Ki-Adi falls back to join her a few seconds later, and Obi-Wan and Shaak step up to take their place dueling Palpatine with Mace.

~

Plo Koon stands at the gates of the Jedi Temple and watches the clones mill around outside through the barrier. Sometimes one or two or them will look up and make eye contact with him, but they always smile awkwardly and turn away.

He and Aayla are taking turns to guard the gate and the room they have retreated to with Shmi, Anakin, Senator Amidala, and Rabé. Both Shmi and Rabé are quite good with a blaster, and Shmi has some limited experience with a lightsaber, so he has given her one of the spares the Temple keeps around.

Neither Anakin nor the Senator are in any condition to be either fighting or running, so they moved them from the infirmary to one of the rooms meant to be a safe haven for crechelings, should the Temple ever be attacked.

Plo doesn’t quite know what to think of Anakin as. If he and Shmi marry, as they both wish to eventually do, Anakin will technically become his son. The boy he knows now would likely not want that, but how much of his personality is really him? How much of it has been warped and created by Palpatine’s manipulations?

He doesn’t think anyone can know until Palpatine is gone and the healers can give Anakin some intensive help. He wants to adopt him so much, to make him and the Senator and their unborn child too, part of his family. He just doesn’t know if that will be possible.

Anakin would be his son. Padmé would be his daughter. Little Soka would be his granddaughter, and he would have a newborn grandchild as well.

Plo smiles under his mask. And Shmi, wonderful, fiery, tenacious, intelligent, strong Shmi, would be his wife.

He doesn’t understand how Anakin could have become anything but a great leader with Shmi and the Force for birth parents.

A shout from outside catches his attention. He whirls back to the gate to see a hail of blaster fire pouring in from outside the courtyard. Many of the clones already lie unmoving on the ground, but the rest are diving for cover, forming up in squads and either returning the fire or defending their brothers with strange, orange, short-bladed weapons that look a lot like crude lightsabers. Whatever they are, they deflect the bolts admirably.

The fight between the clones and what must be the nat-born division of the Coruscant Guard seems to be going in the clones’ favor for a few long minutes as Plo watches from beyond the barrier, helpless even to try and heal the dying.

Then _something_ enters the Temple. He feels it like a storm sweeping in, cold and distant and pulsing.

He hears it before he sees it, raspy breathing and heavy armored footsteps. Then a tall dark humanoid creature steps into the courtyard. It holds up both hands and all the blaster bolts just stop, freezing in midair. Then it makes fists and they fly up in a shower of sparks.

It strides forward slowly, a cape flaring out behind it, turning its helmeted head to inspect the courtyard. A few of the clones try to peek out and take a shot at it. Almost carelessly, they are flung aside and pinned against the walls, choking.

Whoever the person is, they’re wearing a mockery of the clone armor, done in shining black and with a Jedi cape added over their shoulders. The chestplate is bulkier than the clones’, with a panel of blinking lights on it. The helmet is far more ornate, with a grill like a bared snarl and large sockets in places of eye slits. It looks a little like a flat-topped skull.

The person notices Plo igniting his lightsaber and moving into a defensive stance behind the barrier, and snaps two red lightsabers to life in their hands. They stalk forward, sabers raised, and hit the barrier with a thud.

It wavers but holds firm.

He stands face to face with the creature and tries to work out what, exactly, it is. The breathing must be mechanized, since it is far too regular for any living thing to do deliberately. It’s taller than he is by at least a head.

“Release this barrier.”

The voice is also mechanized, though he thinks he can detect a hint of someone beneath the helmet, speaking into a modulator. Maybe it’s a cyborg like Grievous. Maybe it’s his replacement.

“Unfortunately, I cannot,” he says, staring the thing down.

~

They’ve managed to kill most of the guards, and Mace has fallen back to help Ki-Adi protect Kit and Saesee while she tries to stop the bleeding. Whatever they’d been stabbed with, it hadn’t been a lightsaber, which would have cauterized the wounds as it made them. She suspects it was some kind of vibroblade.

Kit has a slash across his whole torso, almost down to the bone, and Saesee has a nasty wound on his head. She’s managed to use the Force to put Kit in an unsteady kind of stasis, but head wounds are harder to treat like that.

Barriss and Savage are facing off against about half of the remaining guards now, while Yoda takes on the rest by himself. Obi-Wan and Shaak are still keeping up with Palpatine, somehow, but even with fighting multiple opponents at once, the old man shows no signs of tiring.

Then again, they’ve been sedated for days and had a tiring crawl out of the Temple and across Coruscant to get here. The Chancellor’s just been sitting at his desk.

The door slams open again and Luminara sees the clone commanders running in, odd primitive lightsabers flickering in their hands. They go straight for the guards, which makes her breathe a sigh of relief before focusing again on trying to stop Saesee bleeding out in her lap.

Luminara sends a desperate plea to the Force that all of them survive this, and that the next broken body that lands beside her isn’t her daughter’s.

Only a few seconds later, she hears a scream from Shaak and a howl of agony from Obi-Wan. Then Shaak hits the wall beside Kit and slides down to land in a limp pile, angry lightsaber burns all over her front.

Luminara keeps pressure on Saesee’s wound and wrenches herself around to see Obi-Wan dropping to the ground, his lightsaber rolling away as he clutches his right arm, which now ends just below the elbow.

Like padawan, like master, she thinks in a slightly hysterical moment.

Palpatine raises his lightsaber to sweep it down on Obi-Wan, who’s completely defenseless.

Then Barriss flies across the room in a frantic leap and plows head-on into him, grabbing the Sith Lord around the torso and clinging on with all her strength. He stumbles back, tries to smash her head against his desk, but she wriggles around like an eel to cling to his back and throws all her weight backwards.

Palpatine staggers under the unexpected assault by a hundred and twenty pounds of angry Mirialan, slipping and half falling, propped up by his desk. Barriss manages to again twist and wiggle out from under his weight, moving from a grip around his chest to a chokehold. Luminara can see scratches beginning to weep blood on the Sith Lord’s neck from where Barriss is digging her nails in hard.

Commander Cody crashes into the space where the Chancellor had been not a heartbeat later, throwing himself protectively over Obi-Wan. When the expected killing blow doesn’t come, courtesy of Barriss doing her sudden imitation of an octopus, Cody snatches Obi-Wan’s lightsaber from where it is rolling on the floor and ignites it, striking at Palpatine’s unprotected chest.

Palpatine manages to bring up his own saber to block the strike.

Cody snarls and throws his weight into holding Obi-Wan’s saber there to keep Palpatine’s blade locked, while he drops his left hand down to his belt and pulls out his own strange orange lightsaber-type weapon, igniting it and shoving it into Palpatine’s chest almost faster than Luminara’s eyes can track him.

At the same time, there’s a blaster shot, and Palpatine sags in Barriss’ grip, a hole appearing in his side. Feral decloaks himself. He’s standing on the desk, holding the blaster on Palpatine’s head.

The room freezes.

Palpatine coughs up blood, sending flecks of it onto Cody’s armor and Barriss’ arm. He drops his lightsaber and Luminara throws out her hand to catch it and shut it off before it can hurt Cody.

It rolls away and one of the clones snatches it up.

“Darth Vader will destroy you,” Darth Sidious rasps. He looks at Mace and somehow manages another nasty chuckle. “And I have made sure I will take the Chosen One with me. Tell Skywalker to say hello to his precious ‘Snips’ when he meets her again.”

Then Barriss jerks her elbow up and ignites her lightsaber in her other hand, slicing through his neck. His head rolls off his shoulders and onto the floor.

Cody shuts off the sabers he’s holding and drops them to catch Barriss, who collapses forward over Palpatine’s body to slump into his arms. Feral slides down to sit on the desk, visibly shaking.

~

Plo shifts slightly. The creature in front of him has just been staring for what feels like hours, though really it’s only been a couple of minutes.

Its breathing is really starting to get on his nerves.

“Lower the barrier,” it repeats.

“I can’t,” he answers. It’s the honest truth.

It must sense that, because it turns to the guardsmen that are following it. “Find the release for this. Kill the clones.”

“No!” Plo takes a moment to realize that the shout came from him.

The creature turns back to him. “Why.”

He stares at Commander Thire, who has poked his head up over the cover of a wall and is watching him. “Let it down,” he says.

Thire’s helmet tilts.

“Please, Commander.”

The barrier fizzles out just as the creature is giving the order to fire on the clones. It whirls around and charges him.

Plo meets it and their lightsabers lock. He slowly slides backwards under the strain of holding it back. How strong is it? He can’t sense that it’s using the Force to push him, just brute strength.

He can vaguely see a firefight erupting in the background between the clones and the guards who are trying to follow the creature into the Temple. So far, the clones are winning.

Just when he feels that he can’t hold it back any longer, a blaster bolt skims past his head and slams into the thing’s helmet. It lurches back, releasing him. He quickly rolls some of the strain out of his shoulders and brings his lightsaber up again.

Shmi comes to stand just behind him, her blaster raised and the lightsaber he had given her on her belt.

“Go back and guard them,” he grunts as the creature comes at him again and he meets it, their blades hissing.

“I am,” she snaps, and fires again. The shot hits the creature in the chest panel and some of the lights begin to flash erratically. It startles back, dropping its guard.

Plo tries to stab it, but it raises a hand and pushes him back against the wall. He struggles against it, but it is strong in the Force as well as physically, and he finds himself lifted off his feet and held there.

He hears the snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting and then Shmi stabs it in the back. It gives a scream that even through the mangling of the modulator he can recognize as pain.

Interesting. It isn’t a droid, then. It must be a cyborg like Grievous, though it’s much less chatty.

Then it screams again and drops to one knee, a hand going up to touch its helmet. It stays there for a breath, then rises again, bats Shmi aside with the hand holding its now-deactivated lightsaber, and stalks quickly out of the Temple, clearing the way with the other lightsaber.

Plo rushes over to Shmi as soon as he can get his legs to work, cradling her to his chest while they sit on the floor. She’s unconscious but breathing. The creature is even killing its own men in its haste to leave.

He wonders why, then decides not to worry about it.

Then he feels a burst of energy rippling through the Force, and knows that the Sith Lord is dead.

He holds Shmi closer. “They did it,” he whispers through his mask, and touches his forehead to hers. They rest there, breathing together.

It’s over.

**Author's Note:**

> i keep forgetting to say so but thanks to spaceshipmint for being my editor, idea bouncer, and general person to yell about the creative process with this. they're awesome. and they haven't told me to go away yet.


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